I have a photo from about 1959 of a group of little girls dressed for a mock wedding. Mock weddings were part of the fabric of home-made entertainment in rural parts of Australia. The spectacle possibly started in American women’s colleges in the late eighteen hundreds, and could be as simple as a group of friends posing for a photo in borrowed clothes, or as elaborate as a fund-raising, cross-dressing, scripted comedy, parodying marriage, gender, the priesthood, and society.
It was raining on the day my photo was taken. Despondent when their plans for a picnic were thwarted, the young adults gathered at my god-mother’s home opened up the wardrobes holding the finery from years past, and decided to dress up the children. I was very upset as they chose me for the pale silkiness and lace of the bridesmaid, as I knew with the certainty that comes with being four that I should have been wearing the black clerical gown.
I don’t really know when I first assumed that I’d be a minister when I grew up. Like the anthropologists attributing meaning to the caricatures and drama of a mock wedding, I’ve been piecing together images from my childhood. Climbing the treehouse steps to preach to the chickens. Sitting under my father’s desk to look again at the pictures in the Bible Story books of Esther reaching out her hand to touch the king’s sceptre, and of Timothy learning from his grandmother. I realise now that the linking theme of my favourite Bible-story pictures was that women were active agents.
And I just remembered something else about those illustrations. My Grade Five teacher asked us to bring a favourite picture to school. I chose the one of the boy Timothy leaning against Lois, and my father (hold your breath) CUT IT OUT of the book so I could take it with me. We were then instructed to write an essay, “Why I like this picture”. I remember writing about how amazing it would be to know that the reason someone has become a great missionary is because you introduced him to Jesus. I wonder what Mrs Morris thought of my piety.
In my primary school years I didn’t have the language to talk or even think about the limitations that the stereotyped gender roles of the time placed on me, so my response when I felt the unease or injustice of expectations was “I wish I was a boy.” Not seeing a women pastor didn’t limit my imagination, however, so I was surprised when I learned in Confirmation class, at twelve, that women could not be ordained in my denomination. “Oh well, I’ll be a ballerina,” I thought. I was already developing the skill of denial as a coping mechanism.
It wasn’t many years that passed before the strong inner calling resurfaced, and was affirmed often by family, friends, colleagues and strangers. Over the years I’ve developed the broad-but-shallow CV of someone that has a clear vocational calling, but is unable to follow it.
The re-discovery of that photo – the mock wedding – evoked the emotions of the day all over again. My inner conversation was one of frustration that they (the grown-ups, who should know everything) didn’t know that I was going to be a pastor. At four, I clearly hadn’t encountered the concepts of Call or ordination to give expression to my inner sense, in those terms. But I have no hesitation in saying that for over sixty years I have known myself to be Called to ministry.
